I’m benchmarking Nvidia RTX Spark LIVE: Testing CPU, GPU, AI and gaming performance

Welcome to the benchmark thunderdome. Nvidia RTX Spark is here — I’m now allowed to tell you about my last week testing it, and benchmark it for you live.This isn’t just a new laptop chip — it’s an Arm-based Grace CPU glued to a Blackwell RTX GPU sharing up to 128GB of unified memory. If you want a diary of my thoughts and experiences all throughout the past seven days, I’ve written about my week living with RTX Spark. But this live blog is for those who want numbers-based answers to the key claims Nvidia has made: does it run games? How fast is that CPU? Can that local AI capability automate your life? Is the Arm emulation as good as they say? Does it really have all-day battery life?I’ve been testing this Surface Laptop Ultra in my lab all week, and while I can’t tell you my thoughts on the hardware itself, for the next few hours, I can share everything I found out about the chip itself.Keep this page open. Let’s break some silicon. Where to buy RTX Spark laptops MS Surface Laptop Ultra: $2,599 @ MS StoreHP OmniBook X AI 14: $2,999 @ HPHP OmniBook Ultra AI 16 OLED: $3,199 @ Best BuyLenovo Pro 9n: $2,999 @ LenovoLenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1: $2,999 @ LenovoMSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+ OLED 2-in-1: preorder for $3,299 @ MSIDell XPS 16: $3,799 @ Best BuyAsus ProArt P14: $6,499 @ AsusAsus ProArt P16: $4,499 @ Asus LIVE UPDATES 2026-10-15T12:43:52.109Z Now let's get into the AI performance (Image credit: Tom's Guide) You're probably reading about my adventures into local AI on RTX Spark this week. To put some numbers to Nvidia's advantage here, I ran it through UL Procyon AI benchmarks. Swipe to scroll horizontally RTX Spark AI test Benchmark Time to first token Tokens per second Phi 3.5 text generation 0.28s 74.4 Mistral 7B text generation 0.49s 54.2 Llama 3.1 text generation 0.44s 50.9 Llama 2 text generation 0.95s 27.8 This isn't a test that has been normally run on other laptops in the Tom's Guide lab, so I've had to ask around my friends for insights on this. In their experience, RTX Spark seems to be surpassing the M5 Pro's AI prowess, exceeding the capabilities of AMD Ryzen AI Max+ and blowing past Intel Core Ultra X9. Once I can do these tests myself, I'll do a follow up.Also, for what it's worth, here's the comparison to my RTX 5060 Ti 16GB desktop GPU. Swipe to scroll horizontally Chip Phi 3.5 Llama 3.1 8B RTX Spark laptop chip 2631 2173 RTX 5060 Ti 16GB desktop GPU 3084 2642 A reduction is always expected between the raw wattage of desktop parts and a laptop chip, but the Spark does get impressively close. 2026-10-15T12:26:39.171Z Battery life is a mixed bag (Image credit: Future) So what about stamina? Nvidia promised all-day battery life and technically that’s true. But it doesn’t come close to the efficiency king of Apple’s MacBook Pro. Swipe to scroll horizontally Chip (laptop) Web browsing battery life test result (hh:mm) RTX Spark (Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra) 10:15 M5 Pro (16-inch MacBook Pro) 21:25 Snapdragon X2 Elite (Zenbook A16) 10:26 Intel Core Ultra X9 (Asus Zenbook Duo one screen) 14:23 AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ (ProArt Go Pro Edition PX13) 11:12 When it comes to gaming or running local AI at full pelt, this falls in line with what you’d expect from an RTX gaming laptop (our gaming test result got one hour and thirty eight minutes) — give or take about 20-30 minutes depending on how much power the internals soak up. 2026-10-15T12:13:06.980Z What about 3DMark gaming benchmarks? (Image credit: Future) This is where Nvidia gets its lick back against the competition. It has a massive Blackwell RTX GPU in it after all, and when you look at the 3DMark numbers, it matches up to something you’d see in an RTX 5070 gaming laptop — even when tasked with x86 emulation in some of these tests. Swipe to scroll horizontally 3DMark test Nvidia RTX Spark (6144-core GPU) Apple M5 Pro AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ Intel Core Ultra X9 Fire Strike Ultra (x64) 7492 n/a 6050 3555 Time Spy Extreme (x64) 6060 n/a 4689 3226 Steel Nomad 2912 2335 1895 1483 Solar Bay Extreme 10594 9108 6047 4015 The two that are n/a on Apple M5 Pro aren't available on the 3DMark suite for MacBooks. Let's get into Geekbench 7 (Image credit: Future)The gates are open, so let’s get straight to the CPU math. How does Nvidia’s Arm-based Grace CPU stack up against Apple, AMD and Intel?Here is the brutal truth: if you’re looking for RTX Spark to claim that single- and multi-core crown from the Cupertino crew, you won’t find it. In Geekbench 7, the RTX Spark’s speeds are noticeably slower than Apple’s M5 Pro and Max chips by quite a margin. Things get closer on the multicore when compared to Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, but single-core prowess still exists. Swipe to scroll horizontally Chip Geekbench 7 single-core Geekbench 7 multi-core Nvidia RTX Spark (20-core CPU) 2604 23610 Apple M5 Pro 3690 29659 Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme 3214 23645 AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ 2407 20856 Intel Core Ultra x9 388H 2574 17223